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>Some people make life better via charity, I try to do it via software. ...wow. Are you seriously saying that building padmapper is a charitable act? Or am I

by blhack 14y ago

>Some people make life better via charity, I try to do it via software. ...wow. Are you seriously saying that building padmapper is a charitable act? Or am I totally misunderstanding what you said there, because... ...wow.

jacoblyles 14y ago
"lifetimes saved" is a rhetorically powerful metric. Shitty UI kills - one hour at a time.
ericd 14y ago
Heh corny, I know, but I think that's the majority of my motivation. Otherwise I would be making a lot more money off of it and it would be a very different site.
- Eliezer 14y ago
  Padmapper certainly helped me find an apartment. Twice, and the second one was so difficult that I might not've successfully moved to be near the rest of the Singularity Institute (no relation to SU), if not for Padmapper. If you did it mostly out of charity and haven't been trying to profit much, then I am even more grateful for that. Please let this flow of positive reinforcement encourage you to continue doing it, and ignore negative reinforcement from haters, because haters gonna hate. (You should see the hate I get for the things I give away ad-free online!) Also, consider making larger profits, because I wouldn't hate you for it, trust me.
  - ericd 14y ago
    Well awesome! Eh, I have pretty simple tastes, if I didn't, I might care more about money.
    - guga31bb 14y ago
      Add me to the countless number of people who found their place on padmapper (just moved in last week!) and are thankful for its existence. It's a great service.
- gms7777 14y ago
  Agreed. The argument seems to be about the semantics of the word "charity". That's entirely beside the point IMO. You're providing a service. And a quality one at that. Last month, after spending hours filtering through CL listings to no avail, I used padmapper and found the perfect CL listed apartment in 10 minutes. Frankly, I don't care about whether you're doing this to help people, or you want to get really filthy rich. What matters is your actions. AFAIK, you're not massively ripping me or anyone else off, you're not torturing puppies, and have no plans for world domination.
crazygringo 14y ago
The central concept of the "invisible hand" of the market is that it leaves both creator and consumer better off. There's a long line of argument that free entreprise is actually more helpful than charity in many circumstances. In a sense, building any company is a charitable act, because you leave consumers better off than they were before .
- smacktoward 14y ago
  In a sense, building any company is a charitable act, because you leave consumers better off than they were before Are you daft? It's not a charitable act to start a for-profit company, because you get paid for providing the service that leaves the people better off. The whole point of charities is that they provide the service without getting paid. (If your business is a startup that has deferred monetization until later, that still doesn't make you a charity; you've just chosen to turn away payment now in the hope that doing so will yield you a bigger payment down the road.) That's not to say that starting a business is a bad thing or that businesses can't improve the world; but there's a clear line between what a business is and what a charity is, and it involves the expectation of getting paid. Which means a business is always going to be lower on the Do-Gooder Scale than a charity is.
  - pg 14y ago
    He's right. The defining quality of a charitable act is that you help people who need help, not that you don't make money from it. E.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=define%20charitable https://www.google.com/search?q=define%20charitable
    - blhack 14y ago
      Would you consider Google or Facebook a charity, then? Or the person at a sports event selling me beer? Are they a charity? I do want beer, and they are facilitating that...for $10/glass. (I think that most people would not consider the beer vendor a charity, and since English is a living language, I think that the cited definition is incomplete)
bhntr3 14y ago
Let's say I invent a hyper-efficient, clean, alternative energy source that averts climate change, makes cheap energy universally available and stops a lot of the causes of war. Would me also becoming the richest man on earth as a result matter to you? Would it diminish the value of what I would contribute? And if so, ask yourself why that should matter at all? This isn't some Rand Objectivist thing. I just don't understand why we use words like charity and philanthropy that tie the outcome/value of something in the world to the self-sacrifice of the outcome's author. It doesn't seem all that relevant to most discussions about the value of a thing.
jongraehl 14y ago
Yes, you knee-jerked on a contrasting of what he does with charity. He does claim that his software improves life, and this is his stated motivation in creating it. You may object to the latter?
gosu 14y ago
I don't get what the fuss is about here. I think that the statement you quoted is explicitly saying that for-profit software isn't a charitable act. Instead, in an implicit comparison to charitable acts, it's saying that for-profit software can also make life better for users.

by blhack 14y ago

jacoblyles 14y ago

"lifetimes saved" is a rhetorically powerful metric. Shitty UI kills - one hour at a time.

ericd 14y ago

Heh corny, I know, but I think that's the majority of my motivation. Otherwise I would be making a lot more money off of it and it would be a very different site.

Eliezer 14y ago
Padmapper certainly helped me find an apartment. Twice, and the second one was so difficult that I might not've successfully moved to be near the rest of the Singularity Institute (no relation to SU), if not for Padmapper. If you did it mostly out of charity and haven't been trying to profit much, then I am even more grateful for that. Please let this flow of positive reinforcement encourage you to continue doing it, and ignore negative reinforcement from haters, because haters gonna hate. (You should see the hate I get for the things I give away ad-free online!) Also, consider making larger profits, because I wouldn't hate you for it, trust me.
- ericd 14y ago
  Well awesome! Eh, I have pretty simple tastes, if I didn't, I might care more about money.
  - guga31bb 14y ago
    Add me to the countless number of people who found their place on padmapper (just moved in last week!) and are thankful for its existence. It's a great service.
gms7777 14y ago
Agreed. The argument seems to be about the semantics of the word "charity". That's entirely beside the point IMO. You're providing a service. And a quality one at that. Last month, after spending hours filtering through CL listings to no avail, I used padmapper and found the perfect CL listed apartment in 10 minutes. Frankly, I don't care about whether you're doing this to help people, or you want to get really filthy rich. What matters is your actions. AFAIK, you're not massively ripping me or anyone else off, you're not torturing puppies, and have no plans for world domination.

crazygringo 14y ago

The central concept of the "invisible hand" of the market is that it leaves both creator and consumer better off. There's a long line of argument that free entreprise is actually more helpful than charity in many circumstances. In a sense, building any company is a charitable act, because you leave consumers better off than they were before .

smacktoward 14y ago
In a sense, building any company is a charitable act, because you leave consumers better off than they were before Are you daft? It's not a charitable act to start a for-profit company, because you get paid for providing the service that leaves the people better off. The whole point of charities is that they provide the service without getting paid. (If your business is a startup that has deferred monetization until later, that still doesn't make you a charity; you've just chosen to turn away payment now in the hope that doing so will yield you a bigger payment down the road.) That's not to say that starting a business is a bad thing or that businesses can't improve the world; but there's a clear line between what a business is and what a charity is, and it involves the expectation of getting paid. Which means a business is always going to be lower on the Do-Gooder Scale than a charity is.
- pg 14y ago
  He's right. The defining quality of a charitable act is that you help people who need help, not that you don't make money from it. E.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=define%20charitable https://www.google.com/search?q=define%20charitable
  - blhack 14y ago
    Would you consider Google or Facebook a charity, then? Or the person at a sports event selling me beer? Are they a charity? I do want beer, and they are facilitating that...for $10/glass. (I think that most people would not consider the beer vendor a charity, and since English is a living language, I think that the cited definition is incomplete)

bhntr3 14y ago

Let's say I invent a hyper-efficient, clean, alternative energy source that averts climate change, makes cheap energy universally available and stops a lot of the causes of war. Would me also becoming the richest man on earth as a result matter to you? Would it diminish the value of what I would contribute? And if so, ask yourself why that should matter at all? This isn't some Rand Objectivist thing. I just don't understand why we use words like charity and philanthropy that tie the outcome/value of something in the world to the self-sacrifice of the outcome's author. It doesn't seem all that relevant to most discussions about the value of a thing.

jongraehl 14y ago

Yes, you knee-jerked on a contrasting of what he does with charity. He does claim that his software improves life, and this is his stated motivation in creating it. You may object to the latter?

gosu 14y ago

I don't get what the fuss is about here. I think that the statement you quoted is explicitly saying that for-profit software isn't a charitable act. Instead, in an implicit comparison to charitable acts, it's saying that for-profit software can also make life better for users.